It was the view which I had heard again and again in gangs of unskilled laborers. One could understand it in a measure among the older men, who could hope at the best only to eke out an existence free from the poor-house to the end. But these and many others from whom it came were relatively young men, with every chance, one would suppose, of winning some preferment through effective, energetic work. At five o’clock, the end of the afternoon’s labor, we had an hour in which to make leisurely preparation for a supper which consisted of cold meats in unstinted plenty, and potatoes, and bread, and tea and coffee, and often some stewed fruit with a little cake. After this most of the men loafed in the lobby until bedtime. This sitting-room includes the entire upper floor of a large wing of the building. An enormous base-burner heats it, and serves to render it stifling in the evening, when the men are smoking with every window closed. Games and newspapers strew the tables, and the room is well lighted with electric lamps. On the same level is the upper section of the main building, where are the sleeping-quarters for the men. The provision here is similar in design to that of a cheap lodging-house; only this is almost immaculate in its cleanliness, and the cabins are large and well ventilated, and the ceilings high and airy, and the berths are supplied with new wire and clean corn-husk mattresses, and with sheets and pillow-cases fragrant from the wash. Mine is a middle, lower berth in a cabin for six men, but it lodges at present only two besides myself. In a bunk nearest the door sleeps an Irishman, whose acquaintance I made while getting ready for bed on the first night of my stay. Opening the door that evening and seeing me seated in the middle bunk, he stood eyeing me for a time with obvious displeasure. He was evidently not in the best of humors, and although but two of the six berths in the large cabin were occupied, he plainly regarded my coming as an intrusion. Neatly dressed in dark blue, and with an old felt hat on the back of his head, he cut a fine figure of a workman as he stood in the open door, a man of five-and-thirty, with a massive frame bent slightly forward and with a frown wrinkling the low forehead, from which the thick hair grew in tawny masses. “Who let you in here?” was his first remark. “The proprietor,” I answered. “Did he say you could have that bunk?” “Yes.” “Well, ---- it, is he going to flood the place?” I knew no answer to that question, and so I ventured to ask after the occupant of the bunk nearest the window. “He’s an Englishman; works in the landscape gang wid me,” replied the Irishman, laconically. By this time he had seated himself on his bed with his elbows on his knees and his head bowed with an air of weariness. The change of subject had, fortunately, been effective, for he no longer objected to my presence, and for some time he sat talking freely in a droning, disjointed way.